Mediasonic HF2-SU3S2 3.5" Black USB3.0 & eSATA 4 Bay External Enclosure

Pros: Finally found a USB3 chipset this thing works with reliably. Figured I would share since so many people had this same issue. I bought a Foxconn barebone nettop and it's USB3 chipset has worked FLAWLESSLY for the last 2 months straight. I originally bought the Foxconn for a possible HTPC/OPENELEC box. Ended up trying it with this enclosure just for the h3ll of it and voila, freakin works. So I guess it kinda works out since both of these devices are small footprint and just chill behind my monitors on my desk. So now this is my low power file/FTP/bit torrents server, and I just share my content from these guys to everything else. The foxconn I own is http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=56-119-072&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&PurchaseMark=&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Page=3#scrollFullInfo. Wait for it to go on sale or have a combo deal. I got one for me and onen for my father. When I bought my father's he got a free 60GB SSD with it and it was only 160 bucks. When I bought mine it was only 130ish bucks.

Cons: Still doesn't work with several other USB3 chipsets, including the NEC one I bought after support suggested it. It was slightly more reliable and just disconnected on large file transfers LESS often than other chipsets....but still disconnected sometimes.

Other Thoughts: Still ridiculous that I spent so much time on this but glad I finally have a solid use for this thing. On Mediasonic's website it shows this thing can actually do 4TB drives per bay as opposed to Newegg saying it can only do 3TB. I'm going to look into this further and possibly try this out since I'll be upgrading the 1.5TB that are currently in there soon.

Pros: Enclosure is nice. Good use of space and well made.

Cons: I rarely use the word hate, but I hate this piece of junk. Won't stay powered on. Won't mount. Won't stay mounted. Crashes on large data transfers. Won't power down.

Other Thoughts: Could have been awesome, but it's just reliably unreliable.

Pros: Fast easy setup. No conflicts. Recognized both drives that I originally installed. Hot swapped the drives a few times just to test it out. No problems. Used it for network backup, and had absolutely no issues to date. Definitely worth the price.

Cons: None so far. The front door is a little weak, but has yet to present a problem.

Pros: Worked well in both USB 3.0 & eSata. Nice design. Fast and effective.

Cons: USB mode failed after 7 months of use - hence 2 stars
eSata port must have mutliplier capability! or only drive 1 will be recognized.

Other Thoughts: Keep your box as it is required to be shipped back in original package for RMA. Noticed others had similar issues on the Mediasonic forum.

Pros: Just about no pros to this thing at this point. It's got a nice look to it, the fans can be quiet and it handles four drives well for the price.

But after months and months of sporadic real-time actual usefulness, I've started to realize this box is defective. Reading the comments here rally confirms things for me.

Is use it primarily on USB 3.0 - that's why I bought it. Why use 2.0 if you have several 3.0 ports? you wouldn't, and considering how few chipsets will actually support port-multipliers, 3.0 is the way to go.

From the beginning I had issues with this thing disconnecting on large file transfers, or if I'm formatting a truecrypt volume and running disk tools on the drives inside. Just dies. And when it's not dying, it's not letting me eject the disks. For a while I thought there might be something seriously wrong with the WD Green drives I bought, but I finally got fed up and started to realize - THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG WITH THIS BOX! THERE HAS TO BE!

Coming back to look at the comments, which I should have done long ago, and I realize I'm not alone. Lousy, lousy product when it comes to USB 3.0 - and it's cost me tens of hours of work trying to release drives when I'm done and then recovering data when I have to aggressively shut down the da*n thing and it's still spinning the drives inside (long after I've stopped writing to them).

Gonna shop around for something better and then put this thing on e* bay. If I can cover shipping to unload this piece of garbage on someone else, I'll be just so happy....

Cons: USB 3.0 support blohwz on this thing... and that's the main reason for using it. So basically it's worthless.

Other Thoughts: You buy cheap and you get cheap. That's all there is to it. And Mediasonic is cheap.

Pros: Ordered this 2 weeks ago for 99 bucks. Great price newegg! Was hoping it would simply work once plugged into my express usb 3.0 card on my dv6 hp win 7 64bit laptop. Worked like a charm So far so good in the power down/sleep yellow lite mode when my laptop is put to sleep as I don't regularly shut it off as it is my win media center too. The drives went in the slots fine but the top slot as someone noted in a review has an issue with the handle on the right side bumping into the screw of the case. The trick is to wiggle the plastic handles you attach up and down as you push it in and it will pass the screw. Hopefully I can get it out just as easy when needed. I have it on auto fan mode which seems to run quiet so I dont use the specific speeds as alternative. I put in 2 x 3tb toshiba drives aka hitachi that worked like a charm. It took 16.5hrs per drive to format...yikes. Actually 32 cause s t u p i d me accidentally forced a sleep in the middle of the first attempt. I would buy another one again and 2 of the 4bays is cheaper than the 8 bay unit. It came with both esata and 3.0 cable. The power plug as someone noted is specialized. I don't know why they do this. I am thinking of now rebooting with it plugged in with esata setup to see if my laptop supports the multiple drives. Once again a great price at 99 bucks new egg! Oh and it shipped out of NJ to NY and came in like 2 days unlike my 3tb toshiba drives that came from LA and took all week and longer. I hope this holds up.

Cons: Some complain of noise and think its their drive, if you put your hand on the top of the unit it quiets so its vibration, but more so it seems to be the front plastic door that comes off. But not a big problem and not always noticeable. It probaably needs 2 nothces to secure the closer of it instead of the one in the center to handle the vibration from the drives.

Other Thoughts: I would buy again if the price came back down again or cheaper but I don't need anymore now since I have 2 slots left to use and laready have 9 tb in fantom drives besides the 2x3tb toshiba/hitachi drives I just loaded in this thing...alll for recording movies at about 10gig piece for a 2hr movie typically.

Pros: Good drive and case, easy install. Seems to hate USB3 and ESATA connections with existing Firmware, works well on USB2 only. Tried on five computers and two USB3 cards from Newegg, USB2 - USB3 - Esata connections to IBM Servers so they don't sleep or spin down. Takes lots of large drives, so it can do 8TB easy. Windows XP to Windows 8 compatable. Is quiet and depandable, easy to feed and setup.

Cons: Power saving and timeout would never be happy on any chipset I feed it, pushed every button combination they had. Tried "tech" support from them, still lost in space mode. Finally gave up on returning it or tossing it out. Plugged it into a SEAGATE NAS and it finally has no issues with it, so make a good fall over for a NAS (12TB no less). Did put an eyepatch over the Cylon Blue eye on front, lights the whole room!

Other Thoughts: Would buy another if they ever got their act together, easy and clean unit, I like it, just it doesn't like and computer in house or even at work? Would be nice if they put the power cord in the back too...

Pros: Using it to house 4 drives in JBOD mode. Great value for the price, with lot more features than the competition - LED indicators for every function; button for every function on the front, such as fan mode, fan speed, interface selection (USB vs ESATA); auto power off (sync with PC), etc. Have not fully tested with USB 3, but eSata works well (make sure the PC eSata port supports port multiplier). User replaceable fan, and external power supply.

Cons: User replaceable fan and external power supply are great. But the power supply plug appears to be proprietary (?) - 4 prongs, each pair delivering 12 V (?). It would be better if the power supply plug was generic or industry standard.....

Other Thoughts: See above.

Pros: Works with USB 2.0 and esata(with port multiplier).

Cons: Just like a lot of others, this thing is apparently very picky about USB 3.0 chipsets. After having to RMA my first one due to the esata port not working, when I finally made a switch over to USB3 I found that it would not work on one of my computers at all. The other computer would randomly disconnect during large file transfers, then reconnect. After speaking with support over the course of a couple months their final response was, "Sorry, you will need to buy a USB3 addin card with a NEC controller for this to PROBABLY work. That's awesome since my main reason for buying this enclosure was to use USB3. Thanks Mediasonic, and goodbye.

Other Thoughts: Read cons, don't buy if you care at all about using USB3.

Pros: everything except usb 3.0 works in the beginning

Cons: usb 3.0 does not work on my computer;
fan making loud noise a few months into service;
customer service virtually does not exist. NO PHONE NUMBER, EMAIL NOT RESPONDED AT ALL, posts on their forum was not helpful in the end

Other Thoughts: will never buy from mediasonic again